


Lincoln Park After Dark

by squidgie



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, M/M, Makeup, Pre-Slash, Soft Hockey Boys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 15:41:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29387169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squidgie/pseuds/squidgie
Summary: Hockey players were probably the most superstitious group of people playing sports.  Derek Nurse hadn't been at first, but that all changed back in his Andover days.
Relationships: Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 69





	Lincoln Park After Dark

**Author's Note:**

> I have to confess that I remember seeing an image or reading about Dex painting Nursey's nails, and that just stuck with me like a kick to the head. I have a soft spot for these boys, especially when they're doing things that they may not normally do.
> 
> Also, the title for this comes from OPI Nail Lacquer, a color that I think Derek started with back at Andover. He's since graduated to all sorts of colors, but I think Unicorn Barf may be one of his favorites.
> 
> Not Betaed!

Hockey players were probably the most superstitious group of people playing sports. For Derek, years of playing hockey, from his time at Andover to his time now at Samwell, had taught him that. However, he was surprised by how much more superstitious members of the Falconers were. He'd seen more Falconers knocking on wood and standing up and turning counter-clockwise whenever someone mentioned an upcoming game than he figured, and that was just at kegsters that they’d crashed.

Pre-game rituals were almost as bad. Derek had watched Jack study tape before nearly every game, a habit that continued after leaving Samwell. Bitty often took to baking when they had a home game and passing out brownies and cookies when they'd had an away game. Ransom and Holster usually fought it out over Mario Kart, while Johnson had left Chowder with some visualization exercises before games. Chowder had somehow abandoned those exercises because he kept falling asleep on the Haus couch – which turned into his pre-game ritual becoming a nap on the couch. Naps weren’t something special, but a nap on _that_ couch, when Chowder had a perfectly good bed upstairs? That was.

Dex was, well, he was different. If you asked him outright, he would tell you that he had no pre-game rituals. But Derek was around him enough to notice that Dex took to fixing something around the Haus before a game. Or, if the weather was good enough, he did some maintenance on his ancient 1963 Ford pickup. It kept him busy.

As for Derek, he didn't think much about it until one day at Andover, he decided to paint his nails. Just a glossy black, mind you. He wanted to show people he was edgy but wasn’t ready to be quite _that_ different, though that changed once he got to Samwell. He taught himself to be chill, and along with the mantra came whatever color he wanted.

It was a sound system, painting his nails at his and Dex’s desks as Dex worked outside of their room, or on the rare occasion, inside it, complaining about the acrid smell of the polish. His system, however, came crashing down when he broke his arm. That had been a bit of bad luck in itself, though when he was getting ready to head to Faber in his suit to sit on the bench while his teammates played, Dex had grabbed his free hand.

“Your nails,” Dex said as he stared down at them.

Derek quickly pulled his free hand back and turned his hand up to look at the chipped, worn color he hadn't freshened up since before the last game. "What about it?" he asked. 

Dex again looked at Derek’s nails, then flushed as he crossed his arms over his chest. “You didn’t paint them.”

With a shrug, Derek said, “Yeah? So?” When Dex rolled his eyes, Derek added, “Hey, it’s not like I get to play or anything.”

“Yeah, but _I_ do,” Dex practically barked out. 

“Yo, chill,” Derek replied. He wanted to hold his hands out in front of himself to placate Dex, but the cast really limited his movements sometimes. “Sorry, I didn’t think about it. Let me just –”

With a shake of his head, Dex grabbed Derek's jacket. "No time, now," he said, then helped Derek put his coat on, then realized Derek also wasn't wearing a tie, so he went to the closet and grabbed one. It was Samwell red, which looked good draped over Dex’s hands. He didn’t even ask before he tossed the tie onto Derek’s shoulder, buttoned Derek’s top button, and then raised his collar.

“Yeah, not the easiest thing to put on,” Derek said.

Dex just huffed. He made quick work of Derek's tie, then stepped back and checked out his work. "C'mon," he said and then dragged Derek out of their room and out to Faber.

It was a blowout – for the other team. Derek had never felt so guilty.

The following week, Dex showed up in their room a full hour before they had to go back to Faber. This time Derek was showered and ready to go, though he'd still need help with his tie and jacket. But before he tried to put them on, he'd gotten out his nail polish. The thing was, painting with his injured arm was pretty much impossible, as evidenced by the fact that there was more polish on his skin than his nails, and there was a wide stain of polish on his desk.

Dex took one look, rolled his eyes, and dragged his chair close. “Give me that,” he said, then took the polish brush from Derek’s hand. He looked over Derek’s massacre of a paint job, then cleaned up his skin with a little remover and tissues before he held Derek’s hand close and began to paint.

Derek wanted to hold his breath because the entire thing was surreal. Here was Dex, once a member of the Samwell Republicans, not only holding Derek's hand in his own but painting his nails. The frustrating thing was, like everything else Dex did, it was perfect. There wasn’t a single smudge or drop of polish on his skin. And when Dex pulled his hand close and blew over the nails gently, Derek swore that he could feel Dex’s breath caressing his entire body.

“There,” he said and stood up. “Now sit there and don’t move for ten minutes until it dries completely.” He pulled the hand close again to check out his work, then nodded. “I’m going to the kitchen – you want anything?”

Derek found his throat completely dry as a result of Dex’s touches. He nodded, then tried to clear his throat, and hoped his voice didn’t break. “Water?” he asked.

With another nod, Dex left their room and trundled down the stairs. True enough, he was back ten minutes later with a glass of water with a straw in it. But instead of putting it on the table, he held it out for Nursey to take a sip from, then set it aside.

As he scooted even closer, Dex gently pulled Derek’s broken arm out and put his hand under Derek’s fingers, then gently forced them straight as he examined the paint job. “I already did those,” Derek whispered, not wanting to break the moment.

“Yeah, but only one coat, right?” Dex asked. He reached for the jar and pulled out the brush, draping the bristles against the lid to get rid of the excess. "You need at least two coats, or the paint's easier to chip." He started to put a second coat on, which Derek sincerely wanted to chirp him for. But the way Dex concentrated, holding his tongue between thinly stretched lips, told more of a story than Derek ever could. He didn't know anyone other than his moms could silence him with a look, so Dex had just done the near impossible.

When Dex finished, he didn't wait for Derek to reach out. Instead, he took Derek's other hand in his own, quickly judged his first coat, and then silently worked on the second.

“Why are you doing this?” Derek asked as Dex blew over his fingertips again, setting off a spark somewhere deep inside Derek that he’d rather extinguish than tend to.

With a once over, Dex nodded. “As if you could forget, we’re playing Yale tonight.” He put Derek’s hand on the table, then re-sealed the bottle. “And I wanna beat those fuckers.”

It wasn’t until much later, when Dex cruised by the bench giving everyone high fives (one goal and two assists that night, thank you very much) and Derek held out his uninjured, well-manicured hand for his own celebratory smack, that he realized the two seemed to have become friends.

After that win, it became a thing. Dex no longer puttered around the house looking for something to repair, and car maintenance waited until free weekends. Dex showed back up in their room an hour before they had to go to Faber, or for roadies as soon as they woke up from their pre-game naps, grabbed the polish, and sat together, mostly sharing the silence, as Dex took care of Derek.

Derek expected the behavior to stop once his cast came off, but sure enough, an hour before the game, Dex walked in, pulled up a chair, and painted Derek's nails. Derek had been stunned at first, unable to say anything until after Dex had already moved on to his third finger. “I,” he started, then took a deep breath. “I can do that now, you know.”

“Shut up, Nursey,” Dex said, never losing focus. After that, the silence stretched until Dex completed the second coat.

Dex stood and stretched as Derek looked over Dex’s work. Like always, it was flawless. He looked up in time for Dex to grab his game-day suit from the closet and hang it on the over-door hook. "Which tie do you want to wear?" Dex asked him, heading back into the closet. After rooting around, he came back with, “You could go with the old standby, but I kind of like it when you wear this one,” he held out a slate-gray tie, “with your navy suit.” He began to root around in the closet again, then came back with Derek’s navy suit. “Hmm?” he asked as he draped the tie over the lapels.

All Derek could do was nod. So after checking it out again, Dex hung the suit up next to his. "You want to shower first, or should I?" he asked. But they were too late, at least by the sound of the water and some off-chord song that Chowder began to sing in the shared bathroom. "I guess we both wait, then." He shrugged, then walked over to his desk, opened his laptop, and immediately began typing away, probably at some assignment that wouldn't be due for a couple of weeks.

“What can I do for you?” Derek asked. It was enough of a start to bring Dex out of his concentration, a curious look on his face. Derek got closer, sitting on the edge of the desk, and said, "I mean, you've been helping me so much, I feel like I need to return the favor."

The way Dex’s eyes grew got to Derek, as did the surreptitious once-over look that Dex tried to hide. He had felt them growing closer, but it wasn’t like _that_ , was it?

God, he wanted it to be like that. Suddenly it was all that he could think of.

Derek reached out without thinking, took one of Dex’s hands into his own, and looked over the nails. "I mean, I could return the favor, but," he said with a bit of a frown.

Now it seemed as if it was Dex’s turn to try and find his voice. He cleared his throat, then said, “Doesn’t feel right when I type,” he said. When Derek gave him a questioning look, he added, “I painted my nails once and had to take it off because my fingers felt weird on the keyboard. Typo after typo."

Derek frowned.

“But, you know, I wouldn’t object to maybe, other stuff.” Dex said it so quickly that each word seemed to run together. And judging by the blush that painted his face and neck a deep, deep red, Derek knew there was something to it.

“What did you have in mind, Will?” Derek asked. First of all, Dex gulped at the use of his real name instead of his nickname. Second, his blush seemed to grow even more profound. Emboldened, Derek took a slow step forward, then a second until he stood adjacent to Dex's chair. He leaned down until he was eye to eye with Dex and searched his face for answers.

Dex looked positively bashful. He didn't let go of Derek's gaze but shrugged. "I dunno,” he said.

"Well, there's a lot of stuff out there," Derek said. "I mean, there're nails and hair color and different kinds of makeup –"

“I like it when you wear eyeliner,” Dex squeaked. He cleared his throat, then added, “You know, like before the first kegster this year? You put on eyeliner, and you..." Dex closed his eyes, as if to bunch up his courage, then said, “You looked really, really good.” When he finally opened them, he latched back on to Derek’s gaze. “And I thought, maybe...”

Derek smiled. Not a predatory smile, though he knew that’s what he wanted. Instead, he gave Dex his most disarming smile as he walked back to his desk, opened his drawer, and pulled out an eyeliner pencil. He stalked back towards Dex, Dex glancing between him and the pencil.

“I mean not that I would look as good as you, but I thought, maybe it might be okay?”

Derek reached out and pulled Dex up from his chair, then stepped as close as he dared. He could feel Dex’s quick breaths as they cascaded down his chest. "Oh, trust me, Poindexter," he said. "You would look fucking _hot_ with kohl-rimmed eyes.”

That seemed to break the dam because Derek had two armfuls of William Jacob Poindexter in the next instant. The first kiss was too chaste for Derek's wants, but the second one was too awkward with far too many teeth. But the third. It was like their time on the ice; once they found a rhythm, they were unstoppable. And the way Dex kissed him, his insistent tongue pressing into Derek’s mouth taking, taking, taking, well it was enough to make Derek groan, something else Dex greedily swallowed down.

They pulled apart only when there was a knock at the door. Both turned, but it was the _bathroom_ door that the knock had come from. Chowder stuck his head in, a towel wrapped around his waist, and said, "Shower's free now, guys."

A silence grew between the trio, broken when Chowder finally said, "Hey, you two look kind of red. You're not getting sick, are you? You want me to tell Bitty?"

“No, we’re fine,” Derek said. “We’ll get showered in a second.”

Chowder looked at them both as if he could tell what they'd just been doing but mercifully didn't say anything. "'kay," he said, then crossed back into the bathroom and into his room.

After standing there for a few seconds too long, Derek reached out, took Dex’s hand, and pulled him to the bathroom. "What're you doing?" Dex asked. He looked as if he might hyperventilate at any moment.

“You heard the man,” Derek said. He pulled Dex close, kissed him, and then whacked him on the butt and pushed him to the bathroom. “We need showers.”

They were almost late to warmups later that night. And though no one asked Dex about the eyeliner he wore, it was probably because the team was too busy chirping each of them for the hickeys.


End file.
